Hollow Men
by Emi Lillian Kitsune
Summary: "It would've been possible, once, for Sherlock to hit delete and watch all of his memories and intellect swirl away into a blank, thoughtless nothingness. But now, when he wanted to erase himself more than ever, he had lost the capacity." John is dead, and Moriarty has broken Sherlock. Very dark - includes rape. Oneshot.


**Please be advised - this story is very dark. If mature themes (notably rape, although not very explicitly) aren't your cup of tea, it might be best to find another story. Any thoughts, comments, questions? Leave a review once you're done reading.**

He looked at the wall and tried to keep the moisture out of his eyes.

He would hate that—Jim Moriarty. Or he would love it. Either way, it meant nothing good for him. Sherlock felt numb, which was worrisome—dimly, he heard his mind clicking, spitting out a stream of explanations for the phenomenon, but they didn't fully penetrate his consciousness. Moriarty gasped and Sherlock groaned involuntarily at the spike of pain, then clenched his jaw and stared straight forward again. _Guilt,_ the remains of his functioning mind informed him. That was the feeling. A bizarre and out-of-place sense of guilt—because of what happened to John, because of what he was doing, because he couldn't please the man on top of him. Because, after everything, he just wasn't good enough.

Strangely, he thought of Mycroft, the condescending smile directed across a desk somewhere. He coughed a rough laugh, and Moriarty paused.

"Is something funny?" he asked, voice high.

Sherlock clenched his eyes shut for a moment before swinging his head back and forth in the negative.

"Good," the man said lightly. Sherlock shuddered convulsively before he locked his muscles down again.

Moriarty was never satisfied, and it created a strange ache inside of Sherlock. Despite his not-unimpressive degree of hatred for the man, the fact that he couldn't please him was jarring. Galling. Even the words were difficult now. He could tell Moriarty was disappointed in him, disappointed that he had broken so easily, disappointed that, under the surface, he was just as naïve as Jim had always wondered. Disappointed—even while he was pleased—that Sherlock had been a virgin. Disappointed that his mind had gone so quickly. Disappointed that it had been so easy to find a weakness, so very simple to exploit it.

The pain spiked again. Sherlock gasped and his eyes rolled up—and, for a moment, there was a sepia-and-sunlight image of an army doctor blazed across his retinas. The man was walking through an unremarkable London street—he glanced over his shoulder—he was gone. And so he was, Sherlock remembered. Gone.

_Dead_, his mind reminded him. _Forty-five days ago, at 4:30 in the morning._

The image seeped into the darkness behind his eyes and vanished. Sherlock let go, let himself go limp. He heard Moriarty grunt as if from a great distance, whether from surprise or satisfaction or displeasure he could not tell. He lay facedown, feeling the fibers of the carpet pressing into his closed eyelids, and let himself be molded by the man who was his superior after all. Didn't he deserve this? Wasn't it his job? Shouldn't he be better at it? A part of him winced at his inanity, his pure pathetic desire to please.

Part of him wanted to think that if he showed his obvious lack of pleasure, his kind and willing partner would relent. _Idiocy_, his mind said mildly. _A deliberate misreading of the situation._ Moriarty didn't relent.

"_I am just so changeable,"_ that voice said, echoing through years of memory. John had been strapped to a bomb.

"John," Sherlock said, emotionlessly, voice ragged.

Moriarty didn't relent.

The secrets, they festered. Sherlock hadn't really noticed that, not until he met John and a few of them worked their way out like splinters—how reassuring it was. How frightening. And now it made it harder. Keeping this secret. No advice, no silent recognition.

He wondered, with a matter-of-fact resignation, how long it would be. Because Moriarty was getting bored—Sherlock could tell from his increasingly frenzied attacks. And once Moriarty was bored with him, there was no more purpose to the game.

"You told me once you thought we had a special something," Moriarty murmured.

Was this how it happened to everyone? A twisted web of obligation, guilt to various degrees, one willing participant and one simply trapped? How mundane, to be another of those people with faces pressed into the carpet, keeping back the water in his eyes, going limp and hoping it would stop.

_Moriarty_, his mind said, _A callus on the third finger of his left hand. No rings… Distinctive marks on his fingertips from texting...and…the cut on his palm…._

He couldn't do it.

It would've been possible, once, for Sherlock to hit delete and watch all of his memories and intellect swirl away into a blank, thoughtless nothingness. But now, when he wanted to erase himself more than ever, he had lost the capacity.

Moriarty was done. Sherlock told himself that he had been so caught up in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed, but that was a blatant lie. His skin was sticky with sweat.

"What am I going to do with you?" Moriarty said, letting the words fall slowly, deliberately, pulling the syllables like taffy. Sherlock said nothing. "I suppose I could go out, set a few bombs, buy a few companies, the usual day's work. But this—this is getting _boring_." He hissed out the last word. "Daddy's not happy about how you've been acting."

Sherlock knew Moriarty wanted him to look at him, so he did.

"After all of that," Moriarty said, "You're ordinary. This was so _easy!_" The word echoed off the walls of the room, but Sherlock didn't bother hoping they would be heard. He closed his eyes.

"Poor Sherlock. Look what's become of you now."

The footsteps receded. There was the click of a door.

His mind seemed empty, rattling around without any observations, any knowledge—an enormous abandoned warehouse where a palace used to be.

He tried to pull up a comforting vision—even an image—but he couldn't remember John's face.


End file.
